Physical Therapy, For Life

How PT helps you move better at every age and every stage

Think about the ways your body has needed help over the years. Maybe you sprained an ankle playing sports as a kid. Or you had a baby and needed help strengthening your pelvic floor. Maybe, years later, physical therapy following a knee replacement got you back on the tennis court. Or maybe you're watching a parent relearn something as simple as standing up from a chair and walking across the room.

All of that is physical therapy. “We’re applicable to people at all stages and ages,” says Jackie Velez, PT, MS, Vice President, Inpatient Rehabilitation Services at Burke Rehabilitation®.

Most of the time, physical therapy is there to help you recover something you’ve lost, for example—strength after surgery, balance after a stroke, mobility after an injury. That need doesn’t come with an age limit. It might mean rehabbing a torn ligament as a teenager, rebuilding strength after a heart attack in your fifties, or relearning to walk after a stroke in your eighties. And it isn’t only something you turn to after an event occurs. If you or a parent notice that balance isn’t what it used to be, or that getting up out of a chair takes an extra beat it never used to, that’s worth addressing before it becomes a fall. “PT can act as a preventative tool” Jackie says, “to avoid a fall.”

October marks National Physical Therapy Month, and the American Physical Therapy Association continues to focus on the theme, “PT for the Future Me.” That highlights and celebrates that the choices you make about your movement and strength today shape how well you’ll be able to move tomorrow—next year, and decades from now.

The Rehabilitation Journey

At Burke, physical therapists meet each patient where they are in their abilities, learn where they want to go, and put a plan in place to help them get there. That plan is a highly personal process, driven by the goals patients set for themselves. “It can be as simple as, I want to be able to get up out of the chair so I can go make my tea,” Jackie explains. “Or, I want to get back to competitive cycling. Or, I just had a heart attack and I’m very weak—I need to get stronger in order to go home.”

That goal—going home—is often the first on the list for the medically complex patients at Burke, where they receive at least three hours of therapy a day, for. After leaving Burke, patients continue their recovery in the community. Burke offers 15 outpatient therapy locations , and there they set new goals—often centered on rebuilding independence and quality of life. Recovery doesn’t have to end there, either. The Burke Fitness Center, located on the White Plains campus is staffed with experienced specialist with degrees in Exercise Science. In addition, the adaptive sports programs ranging from sailing to gardening, and support groups, including one for amputee patients that Jackie describes as a tight-knit community whose members return year after year to share advice and encouragement with one another.

Jackie joined Burke this past May, but she's been a physical therapist for almost 30 years. What keeps her in the field, she says, is getting to see the results of her work before a patient even leaves her care. " I love rehab because of the vast changes you get to see," she says, noting that the improvement can be most dramatic in the hospital setting. "They often come to us in devastating condition, and you get to work with your patient until they are strong enough, mobile enough, and independent enough to go home."

It’s a rewarding field, and a fast-growing one: the United States is projected to need 12% more physical therapists by 2035, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For Your Future Me

You don't have to recover from surgery or an injury to start building a stronger future self. Jackie notes that there are a few small habits anyone can start today, regardless or age or ability, to keep their body stronger and more capable for years to come.

"Fitness trends come and go," she says. "But the theme that never changes is to stay mobile. The simplest thing to start with is just get up and move." Walk around the block or even around the house. If you can't walk, try to move your body any way you can. Stretching once a day helps too, whether lying down, standing, or seated.

And if you're not sure where to start, that's what physical therapists are for. "Come see a physical therapist," Jackie says, "and we will help you figure out where to start and where you can go from there."

Because whatever stage of life you're in, there's a future version of you who's counting on the choices you make today.